US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Anhelina Kalinina vs 
Himeno Sakatsume
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Anhelina Kalinina to advance · locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTCPrediction
Kalinina is 49th and 20–16 this season, with 161 career hard-court matches; Sakatsume is a 144th-ranked qualifier, 11–8, making her US Open main-draw debut. Kalinina's record on the surface is a losing one (74–87), which is the only crack, but 95 ranking places and a 159-point hard-court Elo edge are a lot to overturn with three qualifying wins. Kalinina in two.
The case for Anhelina Kalinina
73% to winNinety-five ranking places, a 20–16 season, and a second round here in 2024. Kalinina's grinding baseline game is exactly the wall a qualifier has to hit through, and Sakatsume has never played a Grand Slam main-draw match.
The case for Himeno Sakatsume
27% to winSakatsume is 11–8 this season with a winning career hard-court record (22–18) where Kalinina's is 74–87. Add three matches of court time this week and the gap is narrower than the rankings suggest.
Both cases written 2026-08-29, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
Tale of the tape
Anhelina KalininaHimeno SakatsumePlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-28.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-28.
The briefing
Storylines
- Sakatsume, 25, is playing her first US Open main draw after qualifying.
- Kalinina's career hard-court record is 74–87 — a losing one, despite a top-50 ranking.
- Sakatsume's 22–18 career hard-court record is the better of the two on percentage.
Head to head
They have never met.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-28.
Watch: Opening-round coverage runs across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, including the whip-around channel that only exists in the early rounds. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Not yet assigned. Days one and two of the main draw are on the board; this match falls in the back half of the first round, and the US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before. (Official US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-08-28)
Weather: The forecast cooled since the draw: Sunday opens partly sunny near 80°F with a slight shower chance after 2 p.m., and a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms arrives with Sunday night. Monday is similar at 81°F, and the storm odds climb through Tuesday and Wednesday. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs; the field courts wait. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-08-28)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
The Round of 128 is the widest the net ever gets: 64 matches a draw, spread across three days, every seed in action and every qualifier playing the biggest match of the year. This half of the bracket filled in late — qualifying ran a day long after rain pushed the last round to Friday, so these names were still blank slots on draw night. First-round losers leave with $140,000. The winner draws Bejlek or Bucsa in the Round of 64.
